Inside Politics

Former Rep. J.C. Watts Jr. and Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael S. Steele yesterday called on Democratic Party chief Howard Dean to apologize for making what they termed “racially insensitive remarks.”

“We are simply outraged over recent racially insensitive remarks made by Democratic National Committee Chair Howard Dean,” the two Republicans said in a joint statement.

“In his comments to the Democratic Black Caucus, Dean equates African-Americans who support Republicans to hired help. This kind of backward thinking reminds us of a horrible time in history when blacks were only seen as servants.”

Mr. Dean, at a meeting with the black Democratic group on Friday, said: “You think the Republican National Committee could get this many people of color in a single room? Only if they had the hotel staff in here.”

Apology sought II

Howard Dean, the new chairman of the Democratic National Committee, called on the head of New York’s Republican Party to apologize or resign over remarks linking the Democrats to a civil rights lawyer convicted of aiding terrorists.

Mr. Dean called Stephen Minarik’s comments offensive and said, “The American people deserve better than this type of political character assassination.”

On Monday, Mr. Minarik said Mr. Dean’s election shows that “the Democrats simply have refused to learn the lessons of the past two election cycles, and now they can be accurately called the party of Barbara Boxer, Lynne Stewart and Howard Dean.”

Stewart is a New York lawyer convicted last week of helping terrorists by smuggling messages from one of her imprisoned clients, a radical Egyptian sheik, to his terrorist disciples on the outside. Mrs. Boxer is a liberal senator from California.

Mr. Minarik issued a statement yesterday saying “it is not the Republican Party’s problem that these far-left activists have made their home in the Democratic Party.”

Dean debate

Howard Dean, the new chairman of the Democratic National Committee, requested a media blackout of a debate with top Pentagon adviser Richard Perle, then quickly changed his mind yesterday after news agencies complained, the Associated Press reports.